Manufacturers and agencies associated with the lighting industry may have developed standard lamp base designs (incorporated into the lamp assembly itself) and corresponding lamp holder designs. The basis for these designs may have been to provide the market with standardized products to facilitate a competitive environment where multiple lamp manufacturers and lamp fixture manufactures could develop and sell interchangeable components that met the basic needs of the lighting market. Standard lamp bases standards like (but not limited to) T5, T8, Th, T12, 2G7, 2G1 1, G23 and GX23 (as referred to for lamps manufactured by Philips Lighting and others) may have been developed as common standards to facilitate the implementation of lamps into various applications. Manufacturers may have developed many different lamp models based on these standard lamp bases.
In many applications the lamp base standards may serve the industry well. However in certain applications, straight utilization of the standard lamp base configurations can be detrimental.
It may be typical to find different model lamps manufactured on one particular lamp base standard, that vary greatly in terms of lamp voltage, current, illumination and power rating. This may present problems with respect to proper and safe usage of lamps with certain lamp fixtures. Straight utilization of the standard lamp bases by manufacturers within lamp fixtures may create a situation where the oft-unknowledgeable user may easily, and potentially unknowingly, implement the wrong lamp type for the device employed. Sometimes lamp models with different power and current ratings utilize the same apparent mechanical design (e.g. Philips Lighting TUV36WPLL and TUV60WPLL), which may increase the probability of incorrect lamp implementation by an unknowledgeable end user.
One problem may be performance. Lamp power may many times be critical to the performance of the system employing the lamp. For instance, where lamps are used for non-illumination purposes (including germicidal applications), the effective dosage of the system may be predominately affected by the power of the lamp utilized. Utilization of the incorrect lamp in these systems can result in failure of the system to achieve critical dosing, which may be required and/or specified. This may result in the device failing to meet the performance specified.
Another problem may be reliability and liability. The reliability of the device employed can be adversely affected by the implementation of the incorrect lamp. Impedance differences associated with different lamp models can induce problems with an employed system. Reliability and liability issues surrounding misapplication of lamps may include implementation of an incorrect lamp that may cause premature lamp failure resulting in loss of performance and warrantee liability. Furthermore, implementation of an incorrect lamp may cause premature ballast (power supply) and controller failure resulting in loss of performance and warrantee liability. Implementation of an incorrect lamp can cause operation of a device outside of acceptable thermal and electrical limits. This can result in loss of performance, warranty liability and personal safety liability. Also, as discussed in the preceding sections, the implementation of an incorrect lamp resulting in diminished dosage performance may result in injury (especially in germicidal applications) and personal liability claims by the consumer.
Yet another problem may be marketing. In many cases, it may be advantageous to the manufacturer and provider of equipment to require replacement parts through their own channels of distribution. With a standard lamp base and fixture, replacement lamps may come from any source and the channels of distribution and sales cannot be assured.
Some manufacturers may have made (or deferred to) the decision to offer products that rely primarily on the knowledge of the user and the utilization of the standard lamp bases to ensure the proper continued operation of their systems in application. This strategy may result in a potential for misapplication of their systems, but also it may achieve a lowest cost approach for the initial device sale and also in lamp replacement sales.
What is needed is a system that may address these and other problems associated with lamp fixtures and assemblies.
These and other objects and advantages of this invention will be apparent from the following descriptions, specifications and drawing.